Heckler: Entertaining, but extremely flawed

It's a little weird  and very ironic - to review Heckler, a
documentary that speaks out specifically on film criticism. Despite the
title and promotional materials suggesting that it focuses on those who
heckle stand up comedians, the film has a change of heart half way
through, switching its efforts over to berating film critics. Therein
lies one of the bigger problems with Heckler: the two topics don't have
much to do with one another, despite Jamie Kennedy's, the star of the
film, attempts at correlating them. Besides this major flaw, Heckler is
an entertaining film. Personally, I disagree with nearly every point of
view featured within Heckler, but the film held my interest, containing
what must be hundreds of different interviews with celebrities.

The first half of Heckler focuses primarily on audience members at
stand-up comedy shows who take it upon themselves to interrupt the
performance, insult the comedian, or occasionally even try and steal
the spotlight by finishing the jokes. While this may not seem like a
big issue to most, the film demonstrates how hecklers have become an
increasingly large problem for stand up comedians. Interviews with a
myriad of celebrity comedians, including David Cross, Bill Maher and
Tom Green among others, show the frustrations, self-doubt and career
repercussions comedians face because of unruly patrons. Heckler also
documents some of the more extreme cases as well, including an assault
on a stand-up by an offended viewer, a musician who smashes his guitar
over an unruly mans head, and the infamous Michael Richards incident.
This portion of Heckler does a good job of shedding light on an issue
most people have never given a second-thought to.

This is soon abandoned in favor of bashing film critics, especially,
but not limited to, the internet kind. There are a few legitimate
points made about criticism, particularly how in the "internet" age,
more attention is focused on deriding and humiliating the
actors/directors who created the film, then critiquing the film itself.
While this does show a gradual decrease in the quality of film
criticism over the years, it's still very difficult to sympathize with
the various film directors interviewed within the film, who all seem to
take film criticisms, and the small jabs that come with many of them,
way too far. Anyone working within the entertainment business has to
have thick skin, it comes with the job. One of these featured directors
is Paul Chilsen, who supposedly dropped out of film-making because his
first feature got poor reviews. This isn't the fault of the critics; he
simply wasn't cut out for the business.

However, no performer featured in Heckler comes across as infantile and
whiny as the star of the film himself, Jamie Kennedy. It's a wonder the
man ever made it through high school, as it is frequently demonstrated
throughout the film that he is unable to take the slightest criticisms
of his work. When confronting two teenage hecklers, Kennedy doesn't
seem to care about the fact that his show was disrupted; his only
concern seems to be that they didn't find it funny, as he begins to say
"What do you know about comedy? Who are you to decide what's funny".
They're your audience, Jamie. They paid money to see your show, and
while they don't have a right to ruin it for others, they have every
right to decide whether it's funny or not. If you don't feel like
people should judge your work, perhaps you shouldn't be performing it
for them.

Kennedy also begins meeting with critics who have given his last
feature film, Son of the Mask, a bad review. It becomes more apparent
that Kennedy just can't accept the fact that people dislike it or other
films of his. He blames others for his own failures as an actor/writer.
It's not just the insulting reviews that Kennedy has a problem with: he
has a problem with any review that speaks negatively of the film. In
Kennedy's dream world, everyone would be forced to enjoy every single
piece of art out there, for fear of upsetting the artists. Kennedy
takes offense to Richard Roeper's review stating he wanted to walk out
of Son of the Mask. The ensuing confrontation is hilarious, as Kennedy
attempts to change Roeper's mind by saying in all seriousness that the
movie was trying to push new boundaries...by having a baby with super
powers who could throw people. In another scene, Kennedy confronts a
critic, Peter Grumbine, who seems to find Jamie's overreaction rather
funny. At the end of the exchange, Jamie actually calls Grumbine evil,
putting someone who dislikes his film among the ranks of Hitler,
Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden. Even if you still have the
slightest doubt after watching the movie that Kennedy is overreacting,
the deleted scenes should clear everything up: Kennedy freaks out on a
friend who merely said one of his comedy bits didn't work.

Perhaps the most alarming thing is many of the director's insistence
that no one has the right to judge their work, that anyone who speaks
negatively of their work misunderstands it. It shows a complete lack of
consideration for the audience, and makes one wonder why these
self-proclaimed masters of film even bother showing their work to
audiences if they don't care about the reaction. The one exception is
Uwe Boll, possibly the most hated man in the film-making business.
While he does have an organized boxing bout with critics in the movie,
letting off a bit of steam, he never once speaks out against film
criticism. Perhaps this is why someone like Boll is increasingly
getting better (his two latest movies have had some support) while
people like Jamie Kennedy, Joel Schumacher and Eli Roth are
continuously getting worse and worse. In the end, it's not film
criticism that's destroying the film business, but Kennedy's (and
others) inability to learn from the criticism.

Was the above review useful to you?

34 out of 55 people found the following review useful:

Jamie Kennedy is a whiny little @#$*%

This movie is complete garbage. I would have turned it off less than
halfway through, but I thought I would indulge Jamie Kennedy who I
sometimes find amusing. However, after the first 15-20 minutes the film
no longer deals with the topic of hecklers at all. Instead, Kennedy
goes off on a whining tantrum where he confronts his critics asking
them why they didn't like his movies. Instead of accepting the fact
that he has made some pretty terrible movies (Malibu's Most Wanted, Son
of the Mask) he confronts his critics and makes them explain why they
said the things they said. What he should have done was turn the tables
and explain to the public why he makes such shitty movies. Honestly, he
made hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars for those
movies. Criticism comes with the territory. Suck it up, stop whining,
and make some movies that are entertaining. I honestly wish he would
come interview me for "Hecklers 2", but we all know that nobody who
watched the first one would ever green light a sequel.

Just an absolutely 100% self indulgent piece of garbage that should be
avoided at all costs.

Was the above review useful to you?

17 out of 22 people found the following review useful:

Good, but could have been great.

I have never written a film review here before, but Heckler actually
compelled me to do so. One thing I gleaned from the movie was an appeal
to critics: Don't be mean for the sake of being mean. Instead, make the
criticism constructive. I aim to do that here.

I will start by saying I really enjoyed hearing the perspective of all
the performers and artists on the subject of heckling and criticism.
Since the interview subjects are funny and talented people, the
resulting string of talking heads is actually quite entertaining. As
for the subject matter, I have always been sympathetic towards
comedians who have to endure hecklers while on stage, but this movie
really hit the point home. Also interesting was the footage of actual
heckling incidents, and the sometimes shocking reactions from the
performer.

Jamie Kennedy, the de facto host of the movie, was good for the most
part, but some sequences were more effective than others. He was at his
best when his humor was self-deprecating. When Jamie confronted a
critic, read their review out loud, and then sat there with a sort of
deflated, forlorn look on his face as the critic continued to insult
him, that was good stuff. But when he went on the attack, such as
insulting one guy's babysitting job, or asking a critic about his sex
life, he was turning into the very mean-spirited critic that he had
been admonishing. If he instead became the better person, and turned
the other cheek, he would have been a more sympathetic (and funnier)
character. Still, his performance overall was good.

As for the treatment of film criticism, I felt like there needed to be
more balance. There should have been some acknowledgment that film
critics provide a valuable source of consumer information. When I go to
see a movie, I have to make a 1/2 hour to 1 hour drive, sometimes pay
for parking, pay $10 or more admission, and devote 2 hours of my life
to watching it. Before doing so, I would like to know if it is worth
the money, time, and effort. Film reviews are an essential tool in
making this determination. I am a consumer, and a movie is a product I
am purchasing. How is it any different from reading reviews for any
other product before purchasing it? Why are car reviewers not berated
for what they do? How about Consumer Reports, which reviews just about
any product you can think of? As for internet reviewers, how about the
customer reviews on amazon.com, or rei.com, or any major internet
retail site? They may not be professional reviewers, but their opinions
can be meaningful in large numbers. When 100 owners give something a
good (or bad) review, that is useful information if I am thinking of
purchasing that product. I think it is also a false argument to suggest
that film critics lack credibility because most of them have never made
a film themselves. Back to the car reviewer analogy, I bet most of them
have never manufactured cars, but they have driven enough of them to
separate a finely tuned machine from a lemon.

So, while I enjoyed Heckler overall, I couldn't help but leave a little
disappointed knowing it could have been much better if it was made with
a little less hostility and a little more thoughtfulness. With this
approach, I think these filmmakers could turn a good movie into a great
one.

Was the above review useful to you?

13 out of 15 people found the following review useful:

Here's My Constructive Criticism

In this documentary, Jamie Kennedy says that movie critics should make
a point of giving "constructive criticism," that is, instead of just
saying that a movie sucked, say why it was bad and what could have been
done to make it better. This is one of the parts that I agree with, so
I'll try to do that here.

The first 20 minutes or so were exactly what the DVD cover and title
claim to be- a documentary about how stand-up comedians deal with
hecklers. Listening to the comedians' war stories and methods of
dealing with hecklers is hilarious and a fascinating subject.

But then the movie veers off course when Kennedy makes a ham-fisted
comparison equating movie critics to hecklers. Plenty of others here
have explained why that's a bad comparison, so I don't need to explain
why again.

From that point on, it feels like the movie is nothing but JK whining
that no one liked Son of the Mask. I'm a bit bitter about the
bait-and-switch done here. He shows us a brief clip of SotM that's
supposed to convince us that the whole thing is funny, and assumes that
this gets us 100% on board with his belief that everyone who criticized
it is totally wrong and/or mean-spirited. And EVERYONE he finds either
didn't watch it or didn't like it. He mopes around between sadness and
anger, never once stopping to consider that just maybe Son of the Mask
really was a bad film.

In fact, he seems to be really stuck on the idea that there is no such
thing as a bad film whatsoever. Kennedy argues that because every
opinion on a movie is just an opinion, not a fact. However, most people
would agree that if a film is universally hated by both professional
critics and the viewing public, tanks at the box office, and gets
singled out by Rotten Tomatoes as one of the 100 worst films of the
decade, as Son of the Mask was, then it's a pretty safe bet to call it
a bad movie. There is such a thing as a bad film.

He has some valid points about how mean-spirited and personal-level
criticisms of films are excessively cruel, but these points seem to get
lost in the mess of the post-heckler part of the movie. It's unfocused
and has a lot of logical leaps. One minute all movie critics are scum,
the next minute Roger Ebert is a great and well-respected exception
(even though he's just as famous for tearing into truly bad films as
writing great reviews), the next we see some kid saying that Ebert is
an idiot and an out-of-context clip that makes Beyond the Valley of the
Dolls look really bad, completely missing the point that that film was
intentionally schlocky. One minute a professional movie critic is a
valid career with a legitimate purpose, the next they're all scum
again. One minute he's accepting of the idea of constructive criticism
that doesn't attack on a personal level, the next 25 minutes, no one
should ever have a negative opinion about anything.

We're treated to a parade of famous flop-makers that we're supposed to
feel sympathy for, but don't, because we're still not convinced that
there's no such thing as a bad movie. Bringing in people involved with
incredibly bad movies like Joel Schumaker, Carrot Top, and Uwe Boll to
argue your point only further cements the idea that your movie was bad
and that you're just being bitter about everyone's natural reaction to
it.

However, I thought that the part about how the Web has made everyone
into an elitist critic with a tendency to hate everything was
interesting ("0 out of 4 waffles?"). I find people who come to IMDb,
give a good-but-not-great movie 0/10 stars and a review of "THIS WUZ
The WURST MUVEE EVER LOLz!" to be some of the biggest morons on the
planet, and their opinions to be about as worthless as he says they
are. JK also has an interesting idea where he confronts some of his
harshest, most personal-level critics to see if they'll say the same
things to his face. But his reaction to one of those is so terribly
immature and unfunny (and I'm no prude) that it ruins the whole
exercise.

In conclusion, I think that Kennedy made this film too soon. His
emotions about everyone's reaction to Son of the Mask were still too
raw, and that got in the way of his ability to make a coherent
documentary. Had he made it two or three years later, he probably would
have been thinking clearly enough to leave out some of the moments that
I'm sure felt gratifying to him, but just alienated his audience, like
his contradictory opinions on Ebert or his treatment of the last critic
he met in person.

Was the above review useful to you?

12 out of 16 people found the following review useful:

Funny and thought-provoking - creators vs. destroyers.

The title: Heckler might lead one to believe that the whole film is
about standup comedians and their drunken, attention-starved
arch-rivals. The gaze shifts quickly to film critics, both established
and the legions of self-appointed online experts (like me... hey, wait
a minute!!!). Apparently producer Jamie Kennedy has a bone to pick
after the thrashing he got for his role in Son Of The Mask. (I sense he
might not have been as motivated for this project if he'd just won the
Oscar.) But it's not just him - he pulls up a virtual who's who of
comedy and just about everyone seems traumatized and disillusioned to
some extent.

Getting dozens of great comic talents like Harland Williams and Bill
Maher to speak candidly for any length of time on any topic is a
sure-fire way to guarantee some entertainment value. Ironically, this
approach got more laughs out of me than most feature film screenplays.

Oh, there I go. I keep forgetting I'm part of this problem.

I was surprised to see the extent and the intensity of the online
vitriol. A lot of what gets said does seem excessively mean and
uncalled-for. Apparently morbid, extreme insults are a cheap way to
gain notoriety and generate lots of web hits. (Just like shouting "YOU
SUCK" is a quick and dirty way to gain attention from everyone in the
auditorium.)

This picture clearly distinguishes doers from I-could-do-betters and
the latter group doesn't fare very well under scrutiny. They showed a
clip from Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, screenplay by Roger Ebert,
that makes makes Malibu's Most Wanted look worthy of the Palme D'or by
comparison. And when 4 internet critics accept director Uwe Boll's
challenge to a boxing match, well... let's just say they won't be
lambasting his fight the way they did his films. (He pretty much knocks
them all out, back to back, without even breaking a sweat.)

So as a documentary, I found Heckler to be very enlightening and
provokative. (What am I doing here, picking apart other people's
movies? Why don't I get off my ass and try making one?)

Was the above review useful to you?

8 out of 10 people found the following review useful:

How can you be a movie critic if you haven't filmed any movie in your life?

Documentary against hecklers and critics... and maybe even guy who has
an opinion... the next three questions were in the movie, so i'll try
to give my opinion...

1. How can you be a movie critic if you haven't filmed any movie in
your life? - WTF!? Guys, this is the lamest and dumbest excuse ever! I
haven't been president nor politician so far, but it doesn't mean that
I can't criticize them or their work.

2. Everybody has an opinion about everything today... - Of course, is
it wrong to have an opinion? A lot of comedians also have some kind of
social criticism in their act. Is it me, or is this exactly the same
opinion that we talk about?

3. We don't have thick skin, we also have feelings... - Yeah, humans
usually have feelings, but you shouldn't feel bad and sad if some low
life loser/nerd/idiot or how else you call them, wrote or said
something offending to you or about you. You should work on your
self-esteem. If you're more popular, more people will talk about you,
and not all talk is cool. Get used to it. It's the price you have to
pay.

I don't consider myself heckler, nor critic, not even basher of
anybody's work, but this documentary and people in it are really asking
for it. Folks, get used to it, it's part of life and especially part of
entertainment, stop bitching about it so much.

Policing the Police

I want to try to be as fair to this film as possible, because it's
clear from the comedians interviewed in this film that criticism from
anyone can be taken very personally.

Since this film isn't about hecklers so much as it is film critics
(it's a bait and switch), let's address the latter. Comedies in general
have always been held, fairly or unfairly, to the same standards by
most movie critics as an Oscar nominated Meryl Streep film. And that is
unfortunate. I can be guilty of the same comparisons. However, I don't
see that changing anytime soon, and as long as Adam Sandler's target
audience remains 12 year old boys, many critics are not going to
recommend his films. Sure there may be a caveat ("If you're a
pre-teen...") but generally, critics are looking to recommend films not
to genre-specific buffs or age groups, but to all audiences
(unfortunately this isn't really examined in this documentary).

"Heckler" takes an almost defeatist approach at the hands of film
critics when actually there is a solution. Using eBay or even IMDb as a
prototype, the buyer and sellers on ebay, and the critics here on IMDb
are graded by the readers or themselves, thus helping to weed out
unnecessary incendiary and non-constructive deals and/or reviews. Does
it work for movie reviews? Do audiences have a way to grade Roger Ebert
or Leonard Maltin? No, but it's likely to happen very soon.

I would compare the current film critic industry to the news media in
general before profiteering became so prominent post Cronkite. The news
media and their personalities have nearly lost any and all respectable
viewers. Bill O'Reilly draws 4 million viewers to win his 8:00 time
slot. But that's only 1/4 of 1 percent of the population. The 4th
estate has been so inept, and the difference between "experts" with
special interests so intertwined, that's it's taken Jon Stewart to
create what I've been calling "The 5th Estate" to police the 4th
estate, because they haven't been doing their job of working for the
public, but rather the government, special interests or themselves. And
that's where I see the process of film criticism heading--toward a
state of viewers policing and correcting, if necessary, critics
reviews.

I like Jamie Kennedy based on what I saw from "The Jamie Kennedy
Experiment". I haven't seen any of his films but they don't appear to
be targeted at me. There's a place for silly farce, slapstick and
toilet humor (The Farrelly Brothers...) And there's a place for very
sharp dialog comedies with small but adult themes like "The 40 Year Old
Virgin", "Superbad" and "The Hangover". Unfortunately, Kennedy's film
fall into the former category, and it's difficult to gain traction
among critics who only want to recommend films to wider audiences than
the 12-18 year old demographics in the Adam Sandler vein.

"Heckler" is not a documentary I would recommend because it's filmed to
be more of a defensive commentary on Kennedy's movies (or at least a
cathartic release for Kennedy to confront his critics) than anything
constructive about critics of comedy--which ironically and to it's own
point, is self-defeating. The day will come when the poison arrows are
graded. Jamie Kennedy is not for everyone, but that's OK, and great!
But like Sandler and even Vince Vaughn, David Spade, Tina Fey etc... he
needs to realize this himself, and the sooner the better.

Was the above review useful to you?

4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:

Genius on the fly

A few years ago I wrote that the infamous Monkees' movie "Head" was an
accidental masterpiece. Rereading that review recently, I realized that
many people may have thought I was writing sarcastically, ironically. I
was not. "Head" IS a masterpiece of cinema, even though it undoubtedly
was not what the Monkees or the filmmakers intended, it is just so
brilliantly put together that whatever the motivations, a real document
of the '60s had been produced.

"Heckler," similarly, is a film that reaches way beyond its initial
intentions. Filmed 'on the sly' (i.e., whenever they could arrange an
interview) over a three year period, the film evolved from a
'behind-the-scenes' tour documentary into a study into the relationship
between comics and their hecklers, into an essay on the problematic
relationship between performing artists and their critics generally
(especially those on the internet, such as at IMDb). This evolution
marks its 'accidental' character - the filmmakers are not trying for
depth, they find it because it is there, and demands attention.

Some of this movie is funny, even hilarious, some even disturbing. As
it should be. The film asks why we want to voice opinions of work that
is solely intended to entertain us. Some of the answer to that is not
pleasant to confront. Are we jealous of the more successful? Yet even
the equally successful seem to have their opinions - why7 The film
leaves the question with us, preferring to resolve the problem of how
artists (of various genres) should deal with it (learn from it, burn
it, move on).

I learned a lot from this movie. The cinematography is - well, anyone
who could hold a camera and hit the record button did so. The editing
is wonderful. There's no intrusive commentary except a handful of title
cards. The people are real and captured in as real a manner as the
present day (post 'reality TV) allows. It's just a brilliantly put
together venture, however it came about.

My favorite part? - and I think the decisive moment of the film -
Andrew Dice Clay's confrontation with a worm of a CNN commentator who
had not the slightest idea what he was talking about, and then moved on
to a story about Art Carney! You won't learn a lot about the mysteries
of the universe, but you may learn something about yourself.

(2 BTW notes - (1. The dance towards the end is fascinating. 2. The
'bonus' material on the DVD is uniformly excellent.)

Was the above review useful to you?

3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:

It just made me sad more than anything.

These comedians want you to like them so much, you can almost tell
they're on the verge of tears knowing that somebody thinks they suck.
It starts out strong, with some great comics talking about how much
they love verbally destroying hecklers, but quickly degrades into a
string of second-rate comics talking about how much it sucks when
people say mean things about them. They run out of actual footage after
about a half hour, so the last half of the movie is Jaime Kennedy
tracking down people who gave him a bad review and trying to make them
feel bad by talking about how chicks totally want to screw him. It's
entertaining in the same way it would be to watch a group of autistic
children diving for quarters. You'll probably laugh, but you won't feel
good about it after.

Serious perspective

Jamie, you freaking rock man. I don't review movies on IMDb often but I
had to throw one your way.

I've worked in film/TV production for a few years on the side and have
seen this up close. I think this film said what needed to be said and
they should show it in schools as a lesson in humanity.

I started watching this as it was recommended on Netflix after I
watched Joe Rogan's stand-up and was looking for something short before
a meeting later in the day. I was so hooked, I skipped the important
meeting and finished the film. I definitely got more perspective from
the film than any meeting. I don't want to overstate this - I just
really think more people should see this film.